158 Captain Franklin on the Diamond Mines of 



about 100 yards, and its depth (I presume) cannot be less 

 than 100 feet ; on its periphery, superficial mines are wrought 

 in sandstone, but the cavity of the chasm is filled with green 

 mud, containing calcareous matter, such as I can find no apt 

 similitude to, except by supposing it to be the abraded mat- 

 ter of the same marly slates as those which occur in the mines 

 of Panna and Kamariya, here deposited en masse, and there 

 in slates ; this of course is mere conjecture, but if the vortex 

 has been formed as I suppose it to have been, the matter 

 could not in that case have acquired a schistose form ; be the 

 facts of the case, however, what they may, this singular de- 

 posite fills two-thirds of the chasm, and at the top it has a thick 

 crust of calcareous spar, which is indistinctly stratified, and 

 contains portions of the green mud between its laminae. 



The diamond is rarely found in the calcareous crust, its 

 habitat being in the green mud, and it is believed by the na- 

 tives, that the deeper a shaft descends, the richer is the pro- 

 duce ; but although they are aware of this circumstance, their 

 ordinary means have never enabled them to descend lower than 

 fifty feet, the water at that depth overflowing their works, and 

 compelling them to desist : this deposite, therefore, and that 

 of the basin of the Bagin river, appear to be two instances in 

 which superior means might be employed, with effect, and 

 perhaps with profit. 



Mode of washing and searching the Matrix. — The mode of 

 washing and searching is the same in all the mines, the rocky 

 matrix alone requiring to be broken ; it is first thrown into a 

 trench with water and shoveled and trod like mortar, and as 

 the object is to wash away the clay, fresh water is thrown on 

 and poured off repeatedly until the fragments are sufficiently 

 cleansed, and, as a final purification, they are sifted on fine 

 baskets, which completes the operation of washing; they are 

 then spread in a thin layer on a smooth floor plastered with 

 clay or cow-dung, and when dry the whole is passed under 

 the hand, and searched three several times, after which the 

 fragments are thrown aside. 



Reproduction of the Diamond — The circumstance of dia- 

 monds being frequently found amongst these fragments after 

 they have been thrown aside, has, perhaps, given rise to the 



